The different types of occupational healthcare providers
HBI this week takes a look at where we have found the most common types of occupational healthcare models across Europe, as we finalise our report on the sub-sector for the HBI Intelligence centre.
Occupational healthcare is one of Europe’s most varied sub-sectors. In Finland, Poland and Romania it has created large for-profit operators like Terveystalo, Mehilainen and Medicover but in some other countries we see scant activity: often because of weak labour laws and few tax incentives.
In the report we have looked at both where there is occupational healthcare activity, that which employers are mandated to provide, and where they are layering other services on top to employers or cross-selling into the B2C or public payor market.
We have found that there are three main types. a) specialist providers, whose activity is mostly based on what the law says they have to offer, b) general healthcare providers, where the mandatory activity is delivered alongside wider healthcare services and not just to corporate customers, and c) health and safety specialists, where it forms a smaller part of companies that deal with employee safety but aren’t designed around healthcare.
The big names we have mentioned above – Terveystalo, Mehilainen and Medicover – would likely position themselves as occupational healthcare players because of their 50%+ corporate revenues. But we have decided to designate them within the general healthcare providers because they also work with individual and public payors and have activity far beyond the basic monitoring required by the relevant labour laws.
This happens on a much smaller scale in countries with substantial polyclinic networks like Hungary and Croatia.
The biggest opportunity in occupational healthcare is in the specialist markets because here we are starting to see the biggest names (Quironprevencion, BAD Gruppe, Stamina Health, among others) either develop additional, non-mandatory, products for the employer market or verticalise into primary and secondary healthcare. Quironprevencion is part of Quironsalud and its owners have often said that the existence of the specialist player providers cross-selling opportunities.
Read the upcoming HBI Intelligence report for more information about where the sector is moving.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Rachel Lewis or call 0207 183 3779.
